"I am sure you will disappoint your friends most awfully," says he, in quite an earnest manner. "I know they had quite made up their minds you were to stay the whole time. It would be very unfair of you. And my uncle: he would break his heart if you were to go." "They are all very kind to me," was her only answer. "Look here," he says, with a most friendly anxiety. "If—if—it is only about business—about pictures I mean—I really beg your pardon for intermeddling——" "Oh," said she, frankly, "there is no secret about it. In fact, I want everybody to know that I am anxious to sell my pictures. You see, as I have got to earn my own living, shouldn’t I begin at once and find out what it is like?" "But look here," he said eagerly, "if it is a question of selling pictures, you should trust to my uncle. He is among a lot of men in the West of Scotland, rich merchants and people of that sort, who haven’t inherited collections of pictures, and whose hobby is to make a collection for themselves. And they have much too good sense to buy spurious old masters, or bad examples for the sake of the name: they prefer good modern art, and I can tell you they are prepared to pay for it too. And they are not fools, mind you; they know good pictures. You may think my uncle is very prejudiced—he has his favourite artists—and—and believes in Tom Galbraith, don’t you know—but I can assure you, you won’t find many men who know more about a good landscape than he does; and you would say so if you saw his dining room at Denny-mains." "I quite believe that," said she, beginning to put up her materials: she had done her morning’s work. "Well," he says, "you trust to him; there are lots of those Glasgow men who would only be too glad to have the chance——" "Oh, no, no," she cried, laughing. "I am not going to coerce people into buying my pictures for the sake of friendship. I think your uncle would buy every sketch I have on board the yacht; but I cannot allow my friends to be victimised." "Oh, victimised!" said he, scornfully. "They ought to be glad to have the chance. And do you mean to go on giving away your work for nothing? That sketch of the little creek we were in—opposite Iona, don’t you know—that you gave my uncle, is charming. And they tell me you have given that picture of the rocks and sea-birds—where is the place?——" "Oh, do you mean the sketch in the saloon—of Canna?" "Yes; why it is one of the finest landscapes I ever saw. And they tell me you gave it to that doctor who was on board!" "Dr. Sutherland," says she, hastily—and there is a quick colour in her face—"seemed to like it as—as a sort of reminiscence, you know——" "But he should not have accepted a valuable picture," said the Youth, with decision. "No doubt you offered it to him when you saw he admired it. But now—when he must understand that—well, in fact, that circumstances are altered—he will have the good sense to give it you back again."